


Daughter of the Forest

by Morgyn Leri (morgynleri)



Series: The Travel Collection: Drabbles, Snippets, and Supershorts [29]
Category: Highlander
Genre: Alternate Universe, GFY, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-28
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2017-12-13 06:45:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/821264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgynleri/pseuds/Morgyn%20Leri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Only the great two-headed axe he'd never let her handle is missing, but she'd known it would be, with him gone from the cabin. It's always been his, and he's always taken it with him, even when he's merely gone hunting.</p><p>Zoya hadn't expected that he would leave the forest, though. Hadn't thought she'd be the one waiting for him to come home, and not knowing if he would.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Road

She doesn't actually know how old she is - at least half a century's worth of winters, but nothing more precise - when she first sees a road. There are none in her father's forest, as no one dares to build there, or even to enter. Indeed, as she explores this strange new world, it seems the borders of her father's home are defined by roads - beaten earth, gravel, or concrete - built where mortals feel safe from the demon in the wood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "road".
> 
> Originally posted as part of [The Travel Collection](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754), in the chapter [The Ever-Changing Road](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754/chapters/749674).


	2. In Her Place

It's as if the forest mourns in her place, fog-shrouded days giving way to a driving rain as the sun sets, turning game trails to mud, and leaves to dark clots clinging tenaciously to branches. Zoya prods at the fire on the cabin's hearth, listening to the rain outside, still wondering what name to give what she is feeling, if she feels anything at all.

Once satisfied with the fire, she picks up the first of the axes laid out on the floor around her. Only the great two-headed axe he'd never let her handle is missing, but she'd known it would be, with him gone from the cabin. It's always been his, and he's always taken it with him, even when he's merely gone hunting.

Zoya hadn't expected that he would leave the forest, though. Hadn't thought she'd be the one waiting for him to come home, and not knowing if he would. Knowing he would not come home. She had never thought he'd die, so great a figure he'd been in her life.

The sound of whet stone over steel blends with the rain, and she lets herself focus on the weapons and the comfort of sharpening them. A chore that she'd had drilled into her from her earliest memories, and still finds reminds her of nights sitting at Silas' feet, her own little axe and whetstone in hand, making sure it was sharp enough.

When she finishes with them all, she closes her eyes, remembering the letter that had arrived in the mail at her college dorm, the address written an unfamiliar hand. The letter had been the same unfamiliar, neat handwriting. A condolence letter, with no name and no return address for her to trace.

She hadn't believed it until she'd come home and found the cabin empty, and Silas' great axe gone. That had been almost a year ago. Zoya's been waiting ever since, though she's not sure for what, with Silas - her teacher, her protector, her papa - gone.

The feel of another Immortal's quickening against her own makes her get to her feet, a small axe in one hand, and her short sword in the other. Turning to face the door, waiting patiently for the other Immortal to come to her.

A knock on the door is followed by a quiet, "I'm not here to fight, Zoya."

She doesn't know who it is, and Zoya hesitates a moment before she sets both sword and axe back down, picking up a larger and sturdier axe instead, keeping it in one hand as she slowly approaches the door. When she opens it, the man on the other side looks up from his hunching position, shoulders forward as if huddling close to the door against the rain.

"Who are you, and how did you find this place?" Zoya studies the other Immortal carefully. Thin, and probably taller than he's trying to appear. Dark hair, dark eyes. Sharp features and a weariness in his eyes that she's seen more often in mortal eyes than Immortal.

"I was a friend of your father's." It's supposed to be an answer to both parts of her question, but while it might be something of that, it's also not an answer at all. "May I come in?"

She studies him for a long moment, weighing his non-answer against what she knows of Silas, before she steps aside, tilting her head toward the hearth and the fire that still burns there. Dangerous, perhaps, but she'll live with the danger in order to hear more about the man she'd known as papa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "rain".
> 
> Originally posted as part of [The Travel Collection](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754), in the chapter [A Misty Veil](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754/chapters/1276502).


	3. Demon in the Woods

She sits with the great ax across her lap, whetstone in hand as she hones the edge to the razor sharpness that her papa would expect. He won't be testing it against his thumb, or praising her for her work, but Zoya isn't working it for that. That he won't be there to be a quiet presence through long winter nights, among any number of myriad things, is more of the blow that came with knowing he had been killed.

Perhaps the greatest one is that the mortals will encroach ever more without someone to reinforce the cultural memories of a demon in the woods, and the peace here will be disturbed. She pauses in her work, looking into the low flames of her fire for a long moment, turning that over in her head. Unlike her papa, she does like to walk out among mortals, but she likes too much the quiet of the forest to see it destroyed.

Her lips twitch a moment in a sharply amused smile. Just because her papa is dead doesn't mean the forest is unprotected. Let them remember the demon as a living thing, and she will have her peace.

**Author's Note:**

> **OCs for this story/AU:**
> 
>  
> 
> Zoya Silvestrova - an Immortal born in Eastern Europe and found by Silas in his woods prior to World War II. She is raised by him, and killed as a young woman during the war when a German squad went in to patrol the woods. Those soldiers were subsequently slaughtered by Silas, and he continued to train Zoya until he was certain she had the skill to defend herself against most challenges.


End file.
